“Yosted” Celebrity Friends, NFL Fan Behavior, Passing Over Sandy, and Bitter Bo: While We’re Waiting…

Good Wednesday morning ya’ll…. It is my “offseason” here at WFNY, but it is good to have this space each week to get some quick views out to the masses. The Browns let me down big time Sunday, the Cavs are about to begin their quest with LeBron 2.0 and to be honest, it is just not my thing. My beloved Wahoos will soon start their winter roster tinkering, but I don’t expect anything major. So what am I talking about?

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I will be the first one to admit it: Despite the fact that Ned Yost has his Kansas City Royals in the World Series for the first time in 29 years, he is still arguably one of, if not the, worst in-game managers in Baseball. His team is playing for a title in spite of him and his over-the-top love for the bunt. I can assure you that I am not alone in my evaluation. Don’t forget this was a guy who was fired with less than two weeks left in the regular season back in 2008 when his Milwaukee Brewers were battling for a playoff spot, led by their ace CC Sabathia,

After all, his brutal moves all season spawned a favorite hashtag in the Kansas City Twitter World: “Yosted.” As in when Ole’ Ned pulled James Shields after giving up a single and a walk in the sixth inning of the Wild Card, just 88 pitches in. Pulling him was bad enough, but instead of turning things over to his lock down seventh inning reliever Kelvin Herrera, or even a lefty to matchup with Brandon Moss, Ned called on right-handed Rookie starter Yordano Ventura. The book on Ventura is that he comes in wild at times before calming down, ala Trevor Bauer. The first two pitches he threw were balls. Ventura’s next one was tatooed to deep center for a three-run bomb.The 3-2 lead had evaporated and the Royals and their fans has been….wait for it…..Yosted.

That is just one of many examples of getting Yosted. But then again, the guy must be doing something right because his team, which trailed 7-3 heading into the eighth inning of the win-or-go-home Wild Card game, hasn’t lost until last night as his Royals rode into the Fall Classic as the Favorite.

One thing you can say about Yost is that he is an interesting guy. Here is something that our old friend Anthony Castrovince brought to our attention: Ned’s got some famous friends, which include Comedian Jeff Foxworthy and the late great Nascar legend Dale Earnhardt.

“Jeff is like a brother to me,” Yost said. “And Dale, I loved him like a brother.”

And no matter what you think of Yost’s strategy, no matter how much we might wish he was a little more media savvy, there is no denying, on the eve of this Fall Classic, that he has made that same ascension in his line of work.

“As the stakes have gotten higher, he’s gotten calmer,” said Foxworthy, who speaks with Yost daily and will be there Tuesday for Game 1 at Kauffman Stadium. “Ned would always say — even at the All-Star break this year — that this team was so close, that they just had to get it through their heads that they could win. And boy, they did.”

Collectively, we underestimated the Royals, and we underestimated Edgar Frederick Yost III. It’s OK to admit that now.

Kudos to the former Indians.com beat writer on another fantastic piece.

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Growing up here on the East side of Cleveland, I was lucky enough to have a father who had season tickets to the Browns. Home Browns games were a holiday in the Dery family. My Uncle had a suburban that 10 of us would pile in to go down to each game. My dad always drove because he the more aggressive of the two behind the wheel. His moves in and out of traffic were Eric Metcalf-esque.

We parked in the lot down the hill by the West side of old Muncipal Stadium. We brought sandwiches from Davis Bakery for half time and My uncle Kenny would get Hot Dogs before the game for everyone and my dad would get the programs. We parked the same place. We walked the same way. We sat in the same order in our seats in section 37 of the upper deck. Everything was very ritualistic. One of the things my older brother and I enjoyed doing was watching drunks fight in the Dawg Pound with my dad’s binoculars. Back then, it was funny to us. Now? Not so much.

Fan behavior at NFL games these days can be borderline appalling. I hate to paint everyone with a broad brush, so if it comes off that way, I apologize. I now take my two young kids to the games with me. The walk from the parking lot into the stadium and from the gate to our seats is an eye opening experience to them. They look horrified at times. Maybe I was the same way when I was their age going with my parents to games down at the Lakefront, but I have to believe things have gotten a lot worse.

I have no issue with anyone tailgating. What I don’t understand is the need to have 18 beers before walking into a game, then barely being able to stand up while acting like a buffoon during the game. Or the guy who wants to act tough and tried to pick fights all day long. This happens in every stadium every Sunday in the fall. The fan on fan fist fights pop up every Monday morning on youtube and get plastered all over the sports blogs. There were two horrifically bloody incidents in Arizona and San Francisco this season that caught National headlines earlier this season. Now comes this nugget out of Chicago:

A man is in critical condition after he was beaten up during a tailgate party in a McCormick Place parking lot before Sunday’s Chicago Bears game.

What is wrong with people? Whether it is in the parking lot or inside the stadium, like the two incidents I spoke of earlier, I just don’t understand why people feel the need to get all liquored up, mouth off to people, then start throwing fists. Has the NFL even taken any steps to try and curb all of this violence? It is no wonder than people now prefer the at-home HD viewing than the live in-game experience.

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Back to baseball. It looks as though Hall of Famer Paul Molitor has become the leading candidate to become the next manager of the Minnesota Twins. This isn’t that much of a surprise, considering Molitor’s Minnesota ties and familiarity with the current roster. But what is interesting to us is who is not getting the job:

Reports have suggested that with DeMarlo Hale, Joe McEwing and Sandy Alomar Jr. having been told they are out of the running and with no evidence of additional candidates coming in now, the derby may be down to Molitor, a Twins coach this past year, Class A Fort Myers manager Doug Mientkiewicz and Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo.

Our man Sandy Alomar Jr. can’t seem to catch a break. Had the Indians not landed Terry Francona two years ago at this time, Sandy would be the manager of the Tribe today. He has been rumored for several jobs over the past three years – Arizona and Minnesota interviewed him this offseason while he was passed over for jobs in Toronto and Chicago (both White Sox and Cubs) – yet can’t seem to close the deal.

We all know that Sandy is one heck of a guy and his work with Yan Gomes over the past two years has helped elevate him into one of the best catchers in the AL. But maybe Alomar Jr. just isn’t a great interview. Not that it has ever been mentioned or is even any sort of problem, but Francona inherited Sandy and moved him from bench coach to First Base coach this past season. There is no rift there whatsoever and Sandy is an Indian as long as he wants to be, but I was just pointing that out. He will be a manager one of these days, I am just surprised it hasn’t happened as of yet.

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A Big Ten guy, I am not. But living in Northeast Ohio I obvious am dialed in. This is not news to anyone; the conference is once again horrific in 2014. Adding Rutgers and Maryland makes things worse. You can point to Rutgers 5-2 record and tell me that I am wrong, but anyone who watched Ohio State destroy them 56-17 this past Saturday knows that is not a good Football team. Right now, the leader of the Big Ten West is Minnesota at 6-1 (3-0) and their best win to date is at Michigan, who we all know is the biggest dumpster fire West of Florida.

It is a two-team, one-game league at this point. Anything that happens before and after November 8 doesn’t and won’t matter. November 8 is when Ohio State visits East Lansing to take on the Michigan State Spartans. The Bucks are an offensive juggernaut with QB J.T. Barrett getting better this week. Then again, who exactly have they played? Their four game winning streak where they have averaged 56 points per game has been against Kent State, Cincinnati, Maryland and Rutgers. While the offensive explosion has been impressive, call me when they play anyone worth talking about.

As for the Spartans, they had their one chance to put themselves in the top of the playoff conversation earlier in the season when they travelled to Eugene to take on Oregon. The game was close for a half before the Ducks overwhelmed Michigan State 46-27. Both Nebraska and Purdue came on late to keep things close when they got their shot at the Spartans, but in the end, both came up short.

Nebraska coach and known Red Arse Bo Pellini, who wants to believe this is a three-team race (except it isn’t), spouted off some interesting/bitter rhetoric about ESPN’s relationship with the SEC, the clear best conference in the sport and the place Pellini had come from before getting the head coaching job at Nebraska:

“I don’t think that kind of relationship is good for college football. That’s just my opinion,” Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini said Monday. “Anytime you have a relationship with somebody, you have a partnership, you are supposed to be neutral. It’s pretty hard to stay neutral in that situation.”

“They play good football, and I know there is some good football played in some other conferences, too,” Pelini said. “It’s hard to say because you just don’t see, unfortunately, in this day and age, a lot of crossovers. So you don’t get a lot to make that decision on, to be able to compare and contrast. You have to go off what the media says to a certain extent and what some people say.”

The truth? As of today, The SEC West has four of the top five ranked teams in the AP poll. Is ESPN supposed to just ignore that fact? Should they be talking about the Maryland/Iowa game that means so much? Come on Bo, you are better than this. Pellini is an Indians fan and for that, I like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that was not the smartest thing he has ever said.

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Your classic Old-School Hip Hop of the week: Big Daddy Kane never gets the respect he is due as an MC. His staying power wasn’t to the likes of BDP, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, and others of his time, but he was still “silk smooth.” Enjoy his greatest cut: “Ain’t No Half Steppin.”